Not Yet Drown'd Read online

  “I have never felt so utterly ponderous, so earthbound!” panted Catherine as they stood to catch their breath. “The earth rises up so solidly underfoot, meets one so firmly, after the experience of being buoyed along for weeks, borne so lightly over water!”

  Catherine and Hector and Grace walked through the streets of the little town, and had soon seen all there was to see. There were boardinghouses and warehouses and residences of every description, from respectable mansions to jumbles of small shacks leaning against one another. The further up the hill they went, the smaller and more squalid were the shacks, until the cobbled street gave way to dirt, and the dirt became a track into the parched wasteland above the town. Some distance up the slopes of the mountain, however, Catherine spied several handsome villas standing in verdant gardens like oases in the desert, nearly smothered behind vast tumbling flowering vines. These mansions, she supposed, were the houses of the more prosperous traders, consuls, or company agents.

  It was a hot thirsty place altogether, and had not nearly enough shade. The best boardinghouse was large and new, built of the native volcanic stone, with a white-painted wooden veranda across its front. It had blue louvered shutters closed against the heat and glare, and window boxes filled with flourishing scarlet flowers. The several warehouses were cavernous but well filled, Catherine could see, with stores of every description: spars, chains, rolls of canvas, coiled cables, and barrels of provisions. In the streets behind them stood rawboned horses harnessed to wagons, empty or laden, their tails switching, hooves stamping, and eyes shut against the greedy, stinging assaults of flies.

  And then the people! There were shiny black people and green-eyed Creole people. Their speech was boisterous and incomprehensible—a corrupt variety of Portuguese, Hector said. Bold children stared at Grace, who gazed back.

  “Aha! there you are!” cried Captain Mainwaring, coming up the street behind them. “I am just going to call on Mr Harvill—the consul, you know. You must come with me and be introduced. Yes, but certainly you must. You will be entirely welcome, for these consuls always do keep an open house. Everyone goes to the consul’s house, though we must get a conveyance to take us up there; it is that white villa, up there on the ridge above the town, you see. Oh, and there are Mr and Mrs Todd! They must come with us, too. Oh, Mr Todd! We are just going to call on the consul! How fortunate that we should all meet here. Mrs Todd will like to rest in the shade of his loggia and have something cool to drink, I am sure. What time is it? Well, we shall be too early to be offered any dinner, I suppose.”

  Captain Mainwaring quickly engaged conveyances for them all: saddled mules for the gentlemen and covered litters for the two ladies; Grace was carried with Catherine. It was a rough, jogging passage up the hill, but the view of the town and the harbour as it spread out below them was enchanting, and Mrs Todd poked her head out of the curtain of her litter to exclaim how charming it was to look down from such a vantage point and see Increase at anchor among the other ships.

  The fragrance of tropical flowers met them at the garden entrance of the consul’s villa. A bowing Creole butler showed them into a high room—very dim and quite cool because all the shutters were closed—then went away. A few minutes later, another servant brought a tray of tall glasses of iced sweet lemonade. Catherine felt most grateful for it; and glad it was not steamy milky tea.

  Mr Todd cast himself into one of several cane-backed reclining chairs set about the room; he sat slumped down in it, his head back and his eyes closed. Catherine thought he looked remarkably sullen and unpleasant. “Oh, Mr Todd,” said Mrs Todd, “you must try this lemonade. It is so exceedingly refreshing! Shall I bring you a glass of it?”

  His reply was a long, loud sigh.

  Mrs Todd cast an arch look at Catherine with an indulgent half moue, and carried a glass of the lemonade to where Mr Todd lay, his eyes still closed. “Here,” she said brightly, “I shall set it just here on the flat wide arm of this chair, by your hand. What a very convenient design for a chair. You will like to drink this, I am sure. Ice! I wonder where they get ice, and how they keep it in a climate like this one. What a luxury. I did not expect to find it here.”

  Mr Todd did not stir, or reply, and Mrs Todd turned away again. To Catherine she said, “We have been walking about the town, and Mr Todd was thinking of inquiring for a fresh cow to be brought aboard for the rest of the voyage—for my health, I mean—but apparently there are none to be had, for there has been a terrible drought here. Just fancy! It has not rained these eighteen months! Not a drop, the man said. There is not a cow in milk on the entire island, no milk to be had but goat! Or ass!”

  There was a shattering crash. They all turned; Mr Todd’s glass of lemonade had smashed on the wooden floor. It puddled against the edge of the Turkey carpet and had splashed across the back of Mrs Todd’s dress. He still did not open his eyes, but now one leg was slung over the arm of the chair where the glass had been, and he swung his booted foot insouciantly.

  A servant looked in, and came back a moment later with a basin and a cloth to clean up the sticky mess. Mrs Todd laughed her silly laugh.

  Just then Mr Harvill entered, and apologised for not coming to them sooner, for he had been ordering repairs to the cistern. “You will give us the pleasure of your company at dinner, I hope; indeed, you must,” he said. “There is a Captain Appleton coming, of the Minerva—no doubt you saw her in the harbour—with his officers, a most gentlemanlike set of men, and my neighbor Mr Mashiter, our eminent commercial man. Of course you must; it is far too hot to go out now, you know, especially for the ladies, and Mrs Harvill has made me promise to secure the pleasure of the ladies’ company in particular.”

  Grace was taken to the nursery to play with Mrs Harvill’s children. And as soon as Captain Appleton and his officers arrived and were introduced, they all sat down to dinner. Mrs Harvill was a small sallow woman with dark circles under her eyes, but she was prettily dressed. She had also a pleasing manner, an easy flow of agreeable conversation, and, apparently, a cook who knew well how to comfort homesick Britons. There was an excellent turtle soup. Then came the fish, of some flavourful and firm-textured kind that was not likely ever to be seen or caught in Scottish waters. When the joint of mutton arrived (or was it goat? remarkably mature flavoured, and stringy), the general talk, which had been maritime and mercantile in the extreme, turned to the news from home and to the king’s recent visit to Scotland.

  “But did she not accompany the party, then?” asked Mr Mashiter, the mercantile man.

  “Oh, no. They say Lady Conyngham was sulking at the Sussex seaside. She had been hoping for a little jaunt to Florence instead, and would not go to Scotland,” said Captain Mainwaring.

  “There was a rumor that he was tiring of her,” said Mr Harvill.

  “Well, it is an odd way of expressing it then—this showering of pearl necklaces, and belts of diamonds and sapphires, and Florentine marquetry tables,” said Mr Mashiter.

  “Pray, Mrs Todd and Mrs MacDonald,” said Mrs Harvill quite brightly, “will this be your first crossing of the line, of the equator?”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Mrs Todd, “and Mr Todd has been frightening me with dreadful tales of the ordeal I must expect to undergo.”

  “Oh, no, you will be excused in compliment to your sex, to be sure. And any gentleman who does not like to undergo the ceremony of ducking and shaving must simply pay the forfeit—it is just a ration of grog for all hands.”

  “Oh! Mr Todd! Mr Todd! He does not hear me. I shall be sure to give him the hint, however. It is a peculiarity of his to dislike extremely any sort of ridiculous situation. It puts him quite out of humour. You should have heard him this morning. He did not like my hat, and he quite ordered me to change it! In the lordliest tones, too.”

  Catherine noted that Mr Todd, seated across from his wife, applied his fork and knife to his mutton with some vehemence.

  Mrs Harvill said, “I doubt Mr Harvill has ever in his life formed an
opinion about any hat of mine. I daresay they all appear equally ridiculous to him, unless they are actually invisible. In fact, hats are rather ridiculous, if one stops to think of it. And so, did you change your hat?”

  “Certainly I did. I am exceedingly obedient. I did not even advance the argument that he had himself just bought me the very hat! Indeed he had, in Antwerp. Yet when he uses that lordly tone, that masterful way of speaking, well, I am quite helpless; I must obey. I am tempted to mention it now, however, now that he is no longer so hot and cross. Oh, Mr Todd? Mr Todd!”

  Unable to turn a deaf ear to her importunity any longer, Mr Todd gave her at last his stony countenance.

  “I was just telling Mrs Harvill what an exacting husband you are, and now you must tell her what an obedient wife I am.” And she reached across the table and tapped the back of his hand playfully with her fan.

  Mr Todd drew away his hand, and then, throwing down his fork and knife, he sprang to his feet. His chair overturned with a crash on the floor behind him. Mrs Todd shrank back into her chair, frightened at last by his violence and the stony expression of hatred on his face. Silence fell over the table. After a frozen moment, Mr Todd turned to Mr Harvill, bowed stiffly, and without speaking stalked out of the room and out of the house.

  A painful minute passed; it was broken when the butler carried in a brilliant trifle of tropical fruits and custard. The trifle was spooned out by Mrs Harvill, and the plates were carried around the table by the silent black servants. The talk turned to the exotic fruits and vegetables which grew so lavishly in these low latitudes. A plate of trifle was set at Mr Todd’s empty place, as though he had been called away on some brief business and might be expected back at any moment. But no notice was taken of his absence, least of all by Mrs Todd, who had numerous questions about the cultivation of pineapples in the open garden, and who told at some length of having once eaten one that had been grown in a Sussex greenhouse.

  In due course the ladies rose and retired. They visited Mrs Harvill’s nursery, well-stocked with four little girls and an infant boy, where silent Grace had been offered an infant ration of porridge. Catherine took Grace’s hand and brought her down to the drawing room, where tea was promptly brought in, followed soon thereafter by the gentlemen. Mrs Todd had looked up eagerly when she heard their heavy footfalls on the hall landing, but then, Catherine noted, managed creditably to conceal any appearance of disappointment.

  When shadows lengthened across the garden, Mr Harvill conceded that the worst heat of the day was past, and soon the party broke up. The saddle mules and the litters were brought up to the gate (Mr Todd’s mule was nowhere to be seen, however) and the farewells soon made. The ride down the hill was even rougher than the ascent, but accomplished more quickly.

  When Mrs Todd emerged from her litter at the landing place on the beach, her face betrayed that she had given way to tears behind the privacy of the vehicle’s curtains. Nevertheless she was soon her usual cheerful self, laughing as she held Hector’s proferred arm and they made their precarious way down over the rocks to meet the boat. Catherine, sliding over the slippery pebbles while hanging on to Hector’s other arm, still privately censured Mrs Todd’s silliness, but had to credit her, too, with a style of courage she had not previously recognised in her. Mrs Todd sustained her high spirits, her rather hectic spirits, until they had boarded Increase once again. But upon finding that Mr Todd had not returned to the ship, she retired to her cabin.

  Hector shut himself up in his little cabin, too, to put the finishing touches on his long letter to Mary, for Captain Appleton’s Minerva was Portsmouth-bound and had offered to carry their letters home. Catherine gathered up the first forty tunes which she had finished copying from Sandy’s manuscript; and tied them up in oiled muslin and twine, to send back to Mary for safekeeping. It made a thick parcel. When she took it to Hector to be sent with his letter, he rolled his eyes, but he did not try to dissuade her.

  Captain Mainwaring was in his own cabin overhead with his steward, dealing with bills and receipts, but upon hearing that Mrs Todd was unwell, he kindly sent her a medicinal offering of his special whisky, the whisky which was so notably endowed with the true contraband goût. Anibaddh carried trays of tea and food to the little cabin. Mr Sinclair, Dr Macpherson, and Mr Fleming all had gone ashore.

  When at last Mrs Todd fell asleep, Anibaddh was at liberty to settle down with Grace to their chess game, set up on a little stand in one corner of the main cabin. This hard-fought game had been continued over a period of several days despite numerous interruptions; and had at last arrived at that distilled interesting point where every move of the surviving pieces was heavy with consequence. Catherine sat stitching diligently at her canvaswork (a creamy dove in a dwarfish tree), but she heard Anibaddh say “Check!” and a few moments later, heard her say it again. Then there was silence for a long while, and Catherine threaded her needle again, now with a length of moss green worsted, and the ship rocked gently and creaked.

  After a while there was a commotion above of familiar voices and footfalls. Then Mr Sinclair and Mr Fleming came in, followed in a moment by Dr Macpherson. Hector emerged, his fingers stained with ink and a smudge on his forehead. Mr Fleming stood over the bent heads of the chess players and studied the game. Then he went above again to the captain’s cabin; Catherine heard his footsteps overhead.

  “Is Mrs Todd asleep?” asked Dr Macpherson in a low voice, far more discreet than his usual braying tone.

  Hector said that she was. “Did you happen to come across Mr Todd at all?” he asked.

  “Oh, aye, we did,” said Mr Sinclair.

  “Could you not persuade him to come aboard with you?”

  “He was in no mood for persuasion, sir,” said Mr Sinclair.

  “Roaring drunk,” said Dr Macpherson. “Disgusting. Making an appalling row on the veranda of this filthy town’s filthiest brothel, sir. And then he presumed to mock me. If I thought him in a condition to be responsible for his words, I should have demanded satisfaction immediately. As it is, and in consideration of what must be the feelings of another person, I am inclined to be satisfied with a full apology as soon as he shall be competent to produce one.”

  Mr Fleming returned. “Captain Mainwaring expects to sail as soon as the watering is finished, no later than ten o’clock tomorrow morning,” he said to the other men in a low tone. Catherine continued to train her gaze upon her needlework.

  “Sly girl! You learn too fast,” murmured Anibaddh. Catherine could see Grace hugging herself with delight, squirming in her chair with the excitement of the contest.

  “He will be unconscious long before that,” said Mr Sinclair.

  “The second mate, with four stout seamen, will go ashore and collect him, but not until the middle watch, sometime after midnight,” said Mr Fleming. “We shall have him aboard before breakfast. He can be put in a hammock in the infirmary for as long as necessary.”

  “I guess I teached you too well,” said Anibaddh when Grace made her next move: a bishop.

  “It is extremely unpleasant to be forced to tolerate such low, such vile company,” said Dr Macpherson, his tone rising again. “It is the great evil of a sea voyage—this enforced proximity for so extended a period. The language he used to me, sir! Could ever any gentleman bear to be addressed so, and before others?”

  “Oh, Dr Macpherson, I certainly heard no particular language. Indeed, his speech was hardly intelligible,” said Mr Sinclair.

  “I beg your pardon, Mr Sinclair. It was intelligible, quite intelligible. Did you not hear him call me a pitiful, clownish fellow?”

  “I did not attend to his utterances, Dr Macpherson, not at all. I do not recall hearing any such offensive words.”

  “He did, though; he said ‘awkward, pitiful, clownish fellow.’”

  “No doubt he was referring to himself, referring ruefully to his own situation, Dr Macpherson. I daresay you misunderstood his reference.”

  “Well, well! Do yo
u think so?”

  “I am quite certain of it, doctor,” Mr Sinclair assured him.

  “He did cut a sorry figure. His linen all awry, a bottle at his lips, and that poxy harlot on his lap! Oh, well, it is fortunate that I have laid in a good supply of tincture of mercury….”

  “Checkmate!” cried an exulting childish voice, a voice unfamiliar to all but Catherine. Hector, Mr Sinclair and Mr Fleming turned, astonished; and Dr Macpherson’s talk trailed off when he saw he had lost their attention—for Grace had wrested her victory at last from Anibaddh.

  13

  Such a Contemptible Notion

  Of the male passengers, only Hector, Mr Sinclair, and Dr Macpherson could not call themselves sons of Neptune; only they had never yet crossed the equatorial line. Consequently, it was explained to them, they must expect upon their first crossing to undergo the time-honoured rite of ducking and shaving, or else pay a forfeit, set at the cost of a ration of rum for the crew.

  “What! An additional allowance of rum?” said Dr Macpherson. “To be added to their usual ration? Indeed! I must be excused from any participation in so barbarous a custom. No, indeed, gentlemen, you must excuse me. My grounds for objection? But they are several. First of all, upon medical grounds. The allowance of rum granted to the sailors even in ordinary circumstances is so great as to be detrimental to their health, and I cannot in conscience as a medical man, as a man of Hippocratic principles, sir, contribute to so unwholesome a practice.”

  “Ah! just what one expects from the man of hypocritic principles,” murmured Mr Todd, not quite audibly.

  “I beg your pardon, Mr Todd?” said Dr Macpherson.

  “I said, sir, if you will not pay the forfeit, then you must undergo the ducking, that is all,” said Mr Todd.

  “No, no, Mr Todd. Again I must insist upon being excused. Upon what grounds? Oh, sir! Do you ask? Do you press me? Well, I do not like to speak of what ought to be a private matter of conscience, but as you inquire I will answer, for I am not ashamed. It is upon conscientious grounds, sir—moral grounds. While other men’s consciences may permit them to indulge in play-acting pagan rites, I cannot myself submit to anything of the kind. I am a son, I hope, of the Almighty, and of my father and my mother, but I am none of pagan Neptune’s, sir. And while others may do as they please, my conscience will not permit me to undergo such an unholy travesty, sir, not even in jest.”